Tobilee said:

Well at least this makes some sense, but only if this doesn't cost too much.

In this config you have some survivability, but this needs a heavy laser cannon desperately.

The A-Wing is a better missile ship than this clearly. The X-Wing has more firepower. If you want an ion ship take the Y-Wing as its 360 degrees are the only good thing about it anyway. So this needs the HLC or an autoblaster if they create such an option. And if that is over 25 points with a cannon installed for a skill 1 ship i doubt it will be any good.

The problem with the expensive secondaries is that you get no refund for the firepower your ship already has. So you buy 2 attack dice on a Y-Wing that you hardly ever use and pay a lot for the only useful option it has anyway. Making it an overcosted and underpowered ship in the end.

Another question is why a ship with a gunner and a pilot cant shoot both its weapons in one turn?? Also Y-Wings had the options to lock their turret in a direction, also forward. Why would a pilot not fix his weapon forward and unleash both guns in one turn on one target. You know i think this makes no sense. Because in the end an X-Wing has a lot more firepower than a Y-Wing which is arguably wrong if a Y-Wing fires both weapons if he has anything in his front arc. They had decent firepower also fluffwise!

I know this would get very problematic with the Firespray. 3+4 dice in one turn would be brutal indeed so this would need some balancing. But otherwise it would make perfect sense.

For your information, we houseruled and playtested the Y-Wing this way in some games. And i can tell you this made the games much more balanced. The 7-8 Tie swarm still defeated this, but not EVERY GAME, as it was when we playtested for officially ruled tournament.

I think i might open a Thread, perhaps with a poll if possible and make the proposition to rerule this.

After reading through the B-Wing description again, I think I may have been wrong on the first pass on how to build the ship.  I think there are a few major points to keep in mind from the B-Wing Description:

*It has heavier shields than the Y-Wing, but less Armor
*It isn't very maneuverable - no more so than the Y-Wing
*Its the most heavily armed fighter for the Rebellion and is designed to take down capital ships

So, at the very least, stats it should have are:

4 hull (less than a Y-Wing)
4 sheilds or 5 shields (More than a Y-Wing)
1 agility (Same as a Y-Wing)
3 primary (More than a Y-Wing, though not sufficient to show the ship being able to down capital ships)

Upgrades: It should probably have 2 proton torp slots, (same as a Y-Wing), a cannon icon (instead of the ion turret), and a droid icon (same as a Y-Wing)

Maneuver Dial: Same as Y-Wing, but more red options.

At this point, the ship isn't substantially different than a Y-Wing.  If we go with 4 shields, the only changes are: -1 Hull, +1 shield, +1 primary, so the base cost of the ship should probably be around 20 points for a PS 1 pilot.  However, we haven't gotten to the action bar yet.

Action Bar: Target Lock, Focus, Coordinate Fire *

*Coordiated Fire: When this ship attacks with a primary weapon, it may make a secondary weapon attack.

This action bar should probably be worth 1 point since it adds an ability over the Y-Wing, making the ship 21 points total for PS1.  In all honesty, you're going to want to add the Ion Cannon at a minimum, so the B-Wing will really start at 24 points, if not 28 points for a Heavy Laser Cannon.  

The Pilot Skill options should probably be 1, 4 (elite and +3 points), and 2 named pilots.  The reason is that the B-Wing is hard to fly and the first batch of B-Wings were all prototypes.  Call the PS1 Dagger Squadron, and PS4 Nova Squadron.  Having an elite option on a generic pilot lets you add Expert Handling if you really want it for the barrel roll, but doesn't increase the base cost of the ship with it.

Endgame124 said:

Attack Dice are really expensive… Point Wise this Ship is already at 24 points for a level 1 Pilot, ignoring the invented Upgrade… That's the big problem, to fly a named pilot of this ship without any upgrades you're going to pay more then 30 points. 

I use the Ship_Stats_vs._poits made by the guys in BGG, and it's really precise about the costing of each ship in the game, I would advise using that to create your versions of the ship.

Well that's a lot more like it if you ask me. The coordinated fire invention is good also. Still lacks defense but at least an offensive powerhouse and different from the Y-Wing. Still for me the rotating-the-ship-around-the-cockpit means to me either it has barrel roll or evade. Hell every single imperial ship has this, even the huge Firespray. And they dont cost the world after all!

Just a Pity the Y-Wing can't get coordinated fire anymore… 

Or just rerule turrets and cannons to be able to shoot in conjunction with primary weapons anyway perhaps. Like that the B-Wing gets no special rule and does not cost more either.

Olethros said:

I'll have to check out the ship builder, though I'll also say I've never seen a game that is 100% balanced by formula.  

Overall, I think the B-Wing needs to be a blend of the X-wing and Y-Wing - I don't think you want to see a really cheap base B-Wing, but one that runs into the mid to upper 20s base with more firepower than a Y-Wing but similar durability, and less maneuverability than an X-Wing.  How you get there is the real debate.

Olethros said:

Yes this builder it's most definitely what FFG uses too.

But i say attack dices are overcosted and defense dice undercosted in their shipbuilder maybe… Hull points and shields are also overcosted and not in relation to a ships agility. Evade is undercosted and needs to be put in relation to agility… The builder is perhaps what they use, but i think then the ship builder itself might be poorly constructed.

This all leads to the Empire being pretty dominant since the Rebels end up overcosted and not at all more efficient than imperials. I will abuse Interceptors in wave 2. They unite everything that is good about a ship in X-Wing. Believe me that will be hilarious especially if i can get my hands on enough stealth devices.

I do believe this game has balancing issues. I have been on tournaments and playtested quite a lot. Rebels could only win if dice were massively on their side and if imperial players did huge mistakes. And that was quite rare. And i find it a pity.

So who cares about a ship builder, just balance the game by any means it takes to do so.

Endgame124 said:

Star Wars fighters do not kill capital ships with their primary armament.  That is why they carry torpedos and missles. 

The B-wing should have three torpedo upgrades since its payload is double that of a Y-wing.  Whether people would actually use all of them is another matter.  Perhaps some sort of targetting upgrade to make missile spam a viable strategy.

X-wing:  Canonically - 6 torpedoes total, FFG - 1 Torpedo

Y-wing: Canonically - 8 torpedoes total, FFG - 2 Torpedo

B-wing:  Canonically - 16 torpedoes, FFG - ?

Rekkon said:

How about 1 torpedo and 1 missile? That'd be different!

Rekkon said:

Canonically, you could say the 3 primaries that lie between X- and Y-Wing. So its either 2 or 3 attack dice. If you guve it a cannon upgrade it would rather be 2. Or you include that firepower to the primary weapon than it is most definitely 3 at least.

The torpedo is a subpar option if you ask me. It is not played often and honestly you don't fix a weak ship by giving it truckloads of weak options. I hardly ever see even Y-Wings take 2 Torps. Why could that possibly be… Also 12 points is an Academy Tie! You could possibly kill it with 3 torps, but then its friends would kill your B-Wing and you would have a huge point gap…

I have been giving quite a bit of thought to how a B-wing might be more "unique" and of value to the game.  The only remotely good idea I have come up with is an idea that originally came up when I was trying to stat out some Tie Defender miniatures I ordered from Shapeways.

I have come to call this mechanic the "integrated ion cannon" for lack of a better name.  The essence of the mechanic is that you perform your primary weapon roll normally, and then if you scored at least one hit roll a die (or dice?) of some kind to determine whether any of the shots that hit were ion cannon shots.  If this secondary roll is successful, the target ship receives one ion token (but does not take any additional damage).

Mediocre example text: 

"After performing an attack roll that scores at least one uncancelled hit, roll one additional attack die. On a hit or critical hit icon, the target ship also recives one ion token."

Some various thoughts, of varying relevance:

-obviously the type/number of dice rolled to determine the effect is open to debate and tweaking

-should it be an innate ability of the ship type, or an equippable secondary weapon? 

-If equippable, should it be a free or otherwise extremely cheap upgrade (basically just to allow more space for the weapon mechanic description on the upgrade card) or a costly upgrade like gunner/heavy laser cannon?

-it could also be a normal ship upgrade category with "B-Wing only" text to limit its use.  This could also serve as a slight balancing tool if needed as it would prevent other ship upgrades from being used along with it.

-to balance the weapon, possibly limit the use of this ability to range 1-2 like the y-wing ion cannon

-possibly  alter the number of dice rolled based on the number of hits.  Less hits equals less opportunities for those hits to be ion hits

-if dice are based on number of hits, exclude critical hits.  The way ion cannons work both in the game and in the fiction implies that a critical hit would never be an ion hit.  This also means that critical hits against shielded targets would be of less value which could be considered another balancing mechanic of a sort.

-it could also have text for just using it as a standard ion cannon like the y-wing's (minus the 360 firing arc) so you could strategically choose between going for max damage with the possibility of an ion hit or limiting your damage to go for a guaranteed ion hit (assuming you hit in the first place)

Just some thoughts I had while theorizing the possibility of wave 3 ships and mechanics.  Like I said this all came more from thinking about the Tie Defender and other possilbities for wave 3 so it's not especially well thought out in terms of the B-wing (or at all really)

Seems like you could simplify that a little by tying the Ion hit to Focus in some way.

Fun thread, I'm really looking forward to seeing what FFG comes up with for one of my favorite SW ships.

In the end, the B Wing is stronger and cheaper then my predictions…

Which I think is fine, the B-Wing is an attractive rebel ship simply for the option of mounting heavy laser cannons for cheap. The suggested Advanced targeting computer (Free target locks for 3 points) stands in for the gunner on firesprays, and choosing Focus also helps a typical shot. In fact I can see one successful list flying 3 B-Wings with this setup, and extra points going into enhancing all of them (an ace and two generics?)

I do arch my eyebrow at barrel rolling… I didn't think that gyrating cockpit to be worth anything more than pure aestheitcs. The B-Wing never barrel rolls in any shot of the movie. The A-Wing, on the other hand, sees Arvel Crynyd barrel-rolling into the Executor's bridge and does not have that manuver. So it makes little sense to me that the B-Wing has this where the A-Wing doesn't.

I didn't expect the sensors option… it does feel a little out of place on something like the B-Wing and I would have expected it on the YT (for the rectenna). On the other hand I can kind of get behind it by rationalizing that it's a special equipment slot. Tractor beams and jamming beams (from TIE Fighter flight sim) might be similar equipment items and would work just as well on those vessels. In fact I'd expect an Assault Gunboat/TIE Defender Marek Steele card to also carry the sensor upgrades to mount those items.

I'm not as stoked about the B-Wings as I am the TIE Bombers, but I do think they're an essential part of future Rebel builds… and they outright replace Y-Wings as ordinance carriers. I never saw the Ion cannons as viable or desireable options when it comes to playing compeditively.

Norsehound said:

I am partially with you and partially not…

the HLC will make them an attractive option and also stock they are decent. But they are not that cheap, this is the pilot skill 2 ship shown which is probably the cheapest available. More firepower but not more durability than Y-Wings and more expensive, sounds fair to me!

I dont think this is the end of the Y-Wing, it is still cheaper and if it would get a new turret option this would differentiate it from the B-Wing further. I hope it will!

i also think the support option would have better fitted on the HWK 290 really, but the barrel roll fits the B-Wing nicely, if you gave it to A-Wings then why not also to X-Wings…